Ahhh yes…..the Summer!  That time of year for…….. Vacation Bible School and Summer Camp!  First, let’s talk about Vacation Bible School or VBS.  Now, when I was a kid, all I heard was the word SCHOOL!  Immediately, I was not interested in attending….. at all….. period.  I mean, hey, I just got out of school for what was supposed to be the entire summer!  Now, you want me to go back and you’re trying to trick me by calling it “VACATION.”   Ohhhh NO!!  It didn’t matter that it was ONLY two weeks and ONLY half a day, I didn’t want to go.  I kept thinking homework and teachers yelling and swinging that ruler or yardstick at you (corporal punishment was a part of regular school when I was a kid…..that meant the teacher could whup your butt).  I told my mom, “I ain’t going.”  That was a bad move.  Back then, you didn’t tell yo momma what you ain’t gon do because the thing you may not do is LIVE!!  After I got to the church, I hoped beyond reason that they showed plenty of filmstrips so at least a kid could catch some zzzzzz’s.  Much to my surprise, by the time VBS got going on a daily basis, it was time to leave.  I was home watching TV & eating pnut butter crackers (more about them later) by 12:30 pm.  The teachers at VBS weren’t real teachers, they were the high school students that attended our church.  And some of those high school girls were FINE (I could tell that even at a young age).  They told us Bible stories, real cool Bible stories (Solomon, Samson, David & Goliath, etc), we had arts & crafts, we sang and we got snacks…..real cool snacks like pnut butter on crackers.  Matter of fact, those were the best pnut butter crackers I have EVER had.  Even to this date, if I make them myself, they just don’t taste like the ones I got at VBS as a kid.  Course now, we had to buy those snacks.   But it didn’t cost a lot.  You could get 10 peanut butter crackers for 3 cents, a half pint of milk was 4 cents (gotta  have milk with pnut butter crackers you know), ice cream was a nickel and so forth (they were teaching us of purchasing power).  For Arts & Crafts, we worked with clay, pipe cleaners, popsicles sticks, beads, and so on.  Then on the last day of VBS, we got to do something (sing a song, recite verses, perform a skit, etc) in front of everyone else and we all were awarded a certificate for attending.  Yeah, VBS was cool and fun.  I hope the kids attending VBS now have as much fun as I had back in the day, which brings us to summer camp.  THAT WAS A WHOLE DIFFERENT TRIP!!  It was sponsored by The Boys’ Club (now The Boys & Girls Club).  Anything sponsored by The Boys’ Club was on point…….most of the time.  Summer camp was a week long and they would provide daily transportation to the camp site.  We only stayed overnight the night before the last day of camp.  I always looked forward to summer camp even though I knew at some point I would get into a fight and would probably get beat up.  You see, I was big for my age.  A 3rd or 4th grader the size of a 7th or 8th grader and it was rough being the size of a 7th/8th grader possessing the fighting skills of a 3rd/4th grader.  It seems like I always got beat up…… at least once every camp.  I remember this older kid bet me a dime he could make me spit blood.  I told him no he couldn’t and accepted the bet.  That boy hit me dead square in the mouth….. then told me to spit.  Wouldn’t you know it, there was blood.  I got popped in the mouth and lost a dime. I told him I could make him spit blood too.  And I would have, if he would have hung around after stomping me into the ground.  There was however, one group that was happy to see me at every summer camp……. the mosquito’s.  They would swarm to me.  I was the special of the day at the mosquito diner.  The menu must have read ”dark meat blood for you all day suckers, get him while he’s here.”  I had so many mosquito bumps, it looked like a heat rash.  Add to that, usually, I’d find a way to fall into the river that we camped alongside.  I walked out one time with a little fish in my pocket, scared the bee-gee-bers out of me.  I did get the chance to play team sports, cook hot dogs over an open fire, make things (arts & crafts), sing songs, tell stories, hike through the woods, learn about nature (I still know poison ivy & oak when I see it) and make lifelong friendships (even with some of those older guys who beat me up).  Ahhhh yes, the Summer!!